


Asherah

by OtherCat



Category: Chrno Crusade
Genre: AU, Adventure, Angst, Drama, Multi, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-06-20
Updated: 2008-01-12
Packaged: 2017-10-07 15:20:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 14,937
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/66421
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/OtherCat/pseuds/OtherCat
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Aion makes a new choice, but Mary is still bound by fate. AU</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Bound by Fate

She had seen this same moment so many times, she felt like an actress in a play. Now she must find her mark on the stage. Now she would reveal to the hero of the piece that he is destined to kill her, now the villain will dryly comment that she must be resigned to her fate. Now the hero will demand answers, and now the villain will command obedience, and accuse the hero of betrayal when he tries to reason with the villain.

She knew every step to this dance, every word and every gesture. She even knew the moment when Possibility opened wide, if only the villain (who was also her friend) would see it. _If only I could make him see! Please let me make him see this time! _

"Why are you testing him like this, Aion?" She asked before he could close. A new question out of potential dozens. She stood between them this time, Chrono on the ground, getting ready to try another attack, Aion advancing with a cruel smile.

"He's weakening," Aion said. He's stopped moving forward, but he's balanced forward on the balls of his feet, ready to attack. "Wavering, because of you."

"You know that isn't true, Aion," Mary said. She heard movement behind her. "Chrono,_stop!" _She said, not daring to look away from Aion. She could sense Chrono's startlement, and she could see the mirror of Chrono's expression on Aion's face. "If I die, you'll lose the information, and you'll lose Chrono. Are you willing to risk that, in the name of punishing his 'weakness'?"

"I'm not trying to punish Chrono!" Aion shouted angrily. Mary thought she recognized a flicker of guilt, swiftly suppressed.

"Then why are you asking him to choose between us!" Mary shouted back. "You are not bound by fate, Aion! _Leave predestination to the goddamn Calvinists!" _

Aion drew a quick, startle breath, and actually laughed. "A prophetess who believes in free will?"

"A prophetess who is tired of dying because you only think in straight lines!" He didn't understand what she meant by that, not yet, but she could see he was at least _listening _to her. "Aion, what's happening now, what you say is happening, I've gone through before," she said in a quieter voice.

He gave her a swift, almost suspicious look. "Impossible." She could see that he had awakened his curiousity however. She didn't relax.

"Aion, my name isn't Mary Magdalene--I don't know what my name is--the Order named me that as one more layer of 'protection' so that my true identity couldn't be traced, and no relatives could demand custody. I literally have no memory of my childhood, instead I have hundreds of lifetimes of other people's childhood, their entire _lives_in my head. The person I might have been, the person I could have been, died before she could really exist. If I survived that, surely this could be no different!"

Aion looked stricken, surprised and disturbed by her words. "It is Mary," he said. "It would be a thousand times, a _million_times worse than anything you could imagine. Pandaemonium will destroy your mind, there will be nothing left, you'll only be a shell, a puppet."

"I'm stronger than you think, Aion," Mary said. "Do me the courtesy of letting me _fight _this fate." She moved forward, and caught his hand, placing it against her neck. Chrono's wordless protest made her heart ache, but she didn't waver, or look back. "I'm more use to you alive than dead, even now Aion," she said, and closed her eyes.

Aion's hand curled around her neck, and she shivered despite herself. She started when he drew her closer, against his chest, but didn't struggle. "What you are asking Mary, will destroy Chrono as surely as my ordering him to kill you would." he whispered in her ear. He released her, and she wobbled backward, her legs feeling nerveless and weak. She fell to her knees beside Chrono, who pulled her close despite his own wounds. "I will however, let you fight."

What she felt wasn't gratitude, relief, or even acceptance of the fate she was still bound by. "Help me get Chrono inside, Aion," she said, and together, she and Aion took Chrono to the infirmary.

* * *

He had watched the bond forming between Chrono and Mary, and he had accepted it. There had been no question in Aion's mind of attempting to interfere. She fit in so perfectly, she might have been one of them, and she had helped Chrono in a way that Aion no longer could. A distance had grown between himself and his brother since their escape from Pandaemonium, and Aion didn't know how to bridge the gap. _Why are you testing him like this? _Mary had asked, and for that he had no answer, even now.

Shader was dismayed at their appearance in her infirmary, but moved quickly to help him prepare Chrono for the regen tank. "Tend to Mary," Aion said shortly, and took over once Chrono had been placed on the examination table. Working quickly, Aion stripped his semi-conscious brother, and cleaned his wounds. When he reached for the gas mask that would put Chrono into a painless slumber, Chrono caught his wrist in a surprisingly hard grip.

_"Brother, thank you." _The look of gratitude on Chrono's face made something inside of Aion twist.

"Don't thank me," Aion growled, but his brother only smiled, and closed his eyes.

Once Chrono was under, Aion carried him to the tank, and lowered him in. Wiping the gel from the tanks off of his hands he rose to his feet. He watched Shader fuss over Mary, dabbing the human's cuts and bruises with anesthetic and disinfectant. Mary looked wan and incredibly fragile in the slightly oversized infirmary gown. "We're going to be running some tests on you Mary," Shader said, giving Aion a brief angry-worried glance before turning back. "You're probably going to have to spend a few days in here."

"I don't mind," Mary said softly. She looked at him as she said, "I want to know what's happening to me."

"You're dying," Aion said, stepping closer to the examination table where Mary perched.

"I know," Mary said in a gentle voice. For a moment, he loathed her for that understanding, kind tone of hers. "I've known since I was a little girl. It was one of my first memories, but that doesn't mean I want to die."

"Why did you come here?" Aion asked, echoing the question that Chrono had asked her. It made no sense--why put yourself into the hands of your murderer?

"Why did _you_come here?" Mary returned.

_Freedom, _Aion thought immediately, then shook his head. "You told Chrono you wanted to meet the man who was going to murder you."

"And wanting to live, and wanting to meet one's killer doesn't make sense," Mary said, as if she had heard his thought. "To me, it was the only thing I could do." She smiled at him, and Aion sensed from her a sort of gentle self-amusement. "I expected him to be waiting for me, a boy my own age..." She shook her head.

From Mary, he caught the image of a child-shaped Chrono, waiting at a train station for her. The child-Chrono wore a long red coat, and bore long rectangular box on his back marked with the symbol of the Magdalen Order. How very strange..."Did you know he was a demon?" Aion asked curiously. He had often wondered if she knew the difference--she never acted as if there were one.

"That's never mattered to me," Mary said calmly. "You've done things, and will do things, that horrify me, but the same thing can be said for humanity as a whole. I try to forgive them, I can do no less for you."

Greatly disturbed, and trying desperately not to show it, Aion gave a what was intended to be an insouciant half bow. "We'll talk again later, Mary," he said, and made his escape.


	2. Bound by Truth

There were a great many tests. Many of them involved sitting in a device that looked something like a barber's chair, while Shader fastened what looked like multicolored buttons to Mary's temples and chest. The chair's surface gave under her weight, forming itself to the curves of her body, and Mary found herself dozing, despite her interest in the proceedings. Shader explained the purpose of each test, and sadly gave Mary an outline of what would happen to her. "If I'm possessed, surely I could be exorcised," Mary interjected. She smiled slightly at the thought. "Though the situation would be ironic." She could imagine the look on the poor priest's face if confronted with such a task--by Genai, for instance, or Rizelle.

Shader shook her head. "This isn't an ordinary possession," Shader said. "I'm so sorry Mary, this is my fault in a way. Aion--Aion doesn't really explain things if he think you won't understand, that's why--" Shader gave a little glance toward the regen tank where Chrono was healing.

"How is it your fault, Shader?" Mary asked.

"I wasn't thinking, when I examined you initially, after Pandaemonium woke up and attacked," Shader said. "There's already a Core-brain, so I thought that since me and Rizelle weren't taken, that you were safe and--" Shader continued speaking, angry and distraught, in a language that wasn't English.

Mary placed a hand on Shader's arm, and the young demon started, and fell silent, catching her hand and clasping it gently. She's so young! Mary couldn't help but think. In a strange way, all of the Sinners were, even, or perhaps especially, Aion and Chrono. "It's all right, Shader," Mary said. "What didn't you think would happen?" She smiled. "In English, this time, please."

"I didn't think she'd jump to a human. She already has a Core-brain," Shader said after taking a deep breath. "I thought if She jumped, it would be to me, or maybe even Rizelle."

"What do you mean by Core-brain?" Mary asked. Why would Pandaemonium have jumped specifically to a female? She wondered.

_"Ae," _Shader said, a soft, anguished cry. She gently pulled away, looking even more miserable, if that were possible. "Pandaemonium is the demon-world, She was our Home," she said, her ears pressed flat to the sides of her head. "Her...Her structure is held together by the Core-brain. The Core-brain maintains the world, and makes it livable. She gave us life. The Queen, She directed us, gave us society and law and function." She sounded like a child reciting her catechism. Shader took a deep breath. "The Core-brain, a very long time ago, became damaged. She had to be replaced, and the only possible replacement was a compatible human female."

"Dear God," Mary whispered. For a moment she felt a surge run through her, as if she'd been struck by lightning, and a Presence that wasn't even truly aware--or aware of her--pushed her aside. She distantly heard Shader's squeak of panic, and felt it as a shadow of her own terror. Somehow she understood exactly how this would be different from a possession, the information appearing in her mind like words of fire written on a wall. A mind-eater or other dark spirit seduced its victim, or tormented it with the knowledge of what the victim's body did while under the spirit's thrall--Pandaemonium wouldn't even know what it had done, when it finally destroyed her. "You'll never find a perfect match, that's impossible, but it's close enough, like a human body fitted with a baboon's heart," she said softly. Just as quickly as it had come, the Presence vanished, and Mary slumped in the chair, pulse racing so fast she thought her heart might burst.

"M-mary?" Shader asked tentatively.

"I'm still here," Mary said, shuddering at the ice-shiver running along her nerves. "I think I understand a little of what's happening to me." She had no way of estimating how long she had, before Pandaemonium finally overwhelmed her, and couldn't even begin to calculate the probabilities and possibilities. The only certainty seemed to be that it would happen, eventually. I will fight this, she thought. I will, not matter what. "Shader, if--if I die, would you be able to retrieve the information from my mind?"

Shader's ears twitched forward, and her tail lashed slowly as she thought. "Nnno. Maybe less than one percent, maybe but probably not."

"You need to be alive to become a Core-brain, don't you," Mary said. It wasn't a question.

Shader didn't answer. She didn't need to.

* * *

"What do you see?" Aion asked, watching Mary write.

"When?" Mary returned. "A day from now, ten? A month or a year from now?" A pause. "Do you want your future told, or someone else's?"

Aion thought about that. "Yourself. What do you see in your future?"

She smiled at him. "A day or ten days from now is no different than today. I write, eat and sleep, and Shader performs tests."

"You are usually more precise." Aion frowned at Mary.

"So are you. I could give you all of the little details in a precise order, but those aren't questions you want answered."

"No," Aion admitted. All of the questions that came to mind were some variation of, _why do you help us despite knowing what we are? _"You said there is no predestination, but you knew you were going to die," he said instead.

"Death is an easy prediction to make," Mary said. She grinned at the disgusted look he gave her. "Every choice that you can possibly make leads to other choices that may or may not be similar to another choice you might have made under the same or similar circumstances. Certain choices have a limited number of favorable outcomes, and other choices have many favorable outcomes. No matter what choice you make, your choices affect the choices of others, and when your choices converge with the choices of others, terrible--or wonderful-- things can happen."

"Some things are more likely to happen than others," Aion said softly. "And some possibilities are unavoidable." Somehow, it seemed amazing that she could grasp such a concept so readily. Even though Shader had praised Mary's intuitive understanding of concepts that should be beyond her, Aion hadn't quite believed that it was possible. "You knew the choices I have made, the choices I will make, and yet you still came here. You helped us. Was it all for Chrono?"

"Leaving with Chrono was was the option that caused the least harm, to both the Order and to Chrono," Mary said.

Aion scoffed. "Chrono would have defeated them easily."

"At what cost?"

* * *

Fingers gently traced his brows, stroked his temples, their touch soft and light. Chrono turned toward the body lying next to his. His eyes were still closed as he sleepily wrapped himself around the other occupant of the bed, as he had many times before. Chrono nuzzled at the familiar warmth, breathing in the familiar scent, his mouth opened to kiss, and he was kissed in return. Then his eyes blinked open and he woke up completely, as if ice water had been dashed in his face. "Aion?" He asked, surprised. Aion hadn't awakened him like this for months, not since their last major battle with the Pursuers.

"You called me, in your sleep," Aion said. "I couldn't ignore you." He kissed Chrono in the center of the the triangle of eyespots on his forehead. "You spent five days in the regen tank before we brought you to your room."

"Mary?" Chrono asked.

"Still in the infirmary. It's one of the most secure places in Eden," Aion said.

"Aion--" Chrono fell silent. He didn't know what he wanted to say, what he wanted to ask. So much had been left unsaid for so long, that he didn't know where to begin. Why are you testing him like this? Mary had asked, shouted, demanded. "We used to talk. You used to listen. Why order me to kill Mary? Why accuse me of betrayal?"

"You closed yourself off from me. You still followed, but you were drifting away from me," Aion said. "Then you brought Mary to us, and she joined us, and you and she came together." He looked away. "I was--happy for you, Chrono. You started to smile again, to joke and laugh the way you used to when we were young. Then Mary was taken by Pandaemonium --and the only thing I could see was her death. I held off as long as I could, but then--" Aion's expression hardened. "But then I heard her telling you that you would be her murderer. It seemed to me then that she had betrayed us, that she had prior knowledge of what Pandaemonium would do, and had chosen to withhold that information. All I could think of was avenging Rizelle and Genai," Aion said.

"By punishing me, for defending her?" Chrono asked.

"Maybe, I don't know. Punishing her, I think, by fulfilling her own prophecy."

"What happens now?" Chrono asked.

"She said she wanted to fight," Aion said. "I'm going to let her, and see where this goes."

"Thank you, brother," Chrono said. It felt wrong somehow, to feel joy or or relief. Aion seemed so certain that Mary would die, that there was nothing that could be done for her. What if he were right?

"Don't thank me," Aion said. "Let's go." Aion rolled off the bed, and tossed Chrono's clothes toward him, before pulling on a pair of pants and a shirt.

Chrono dressed quickly, and followed Aion out of the bedroom. He almost asked where they were going, but quickly realized they were walking toward the infirmary. Rizelle stood just outside the door, leaning against the wall, with her arms crossed. She straightened as Aion approached. "At the rate she's going, Lord, we're going to need to steal the contents of a paper mill," she said, a seeming non sequitur that Aion seemed to understand.

"Has she been sleeping?" Aion asked.

"Shader said something about a disturbance in her sleep cycle," Rizelle said. "Nothing that set off the sensors, she just isn't sleeping right." She glanced at Chrono. "She's all right, just a little peaked."

Aion nodded, and entered the room, Chrono close behind him. The explanation soon became apparent, when Aion showed him where Mary was--in one of the medical observation bays had been converted into a bedroom, with a small desk against one wall. The window was opaque, but the door was open. Mary sat at the desk writing, and for a moment, Chrono felt as if he had been transported back in time to the first time he had seen Mary. The angle and their relative positions were nearly the same, and when she looked up, she had the same heart-stopping look on her face. "Chrono. I'm so glad you're feeling better," Mary said, rising from her chair.

Chrono felt a none to gentle shove from behind, and he stumbled into the room, casting a glare back at his brother, who smirked. "Mary," he said, resisting the urge to deck his brother, Liege or not, and stepped forward to catch her hands in his own. He didn't like the idea of her being locked up in the infirmary, he knew she had enjoyed wandering the halls and grounds of Eden, which had been more freedom than she had had since her forgotten childhood.

"Shader is working on a device that will hopefully keep her from sleepwalking. The hours when Mary is asleep are a particularly dangerous time for her--Pandaemonium seems to have more control during that time," Aion said in answer to his unspoken question. "I'll let you two--talk," Aion said in a tone that made Chrono flush, and think very firmly about punching Aion in the kidneys. Several times. Aion laughed, and walked away, closing the observation bay's door behind him as he left. He's gone back to teasing me about Mary. Is that a good sign, or a bad one?

"Are you all right Mary?" Chrono asked. "I mean, with being here." I don't want you to be where you won't be happy, he thought.

Mary smiled at him, and drew him over to the bed, tugging him down to sit beside her. "I've been cloistered most of my life, Chrono. This isn't any different, really."

"But you weren't happy there," Chrono said. "You called it a cage--I don't want Eden to be a cage for you."

"I am happy here," Mary said. "I'm happy with you, and Shader and the others, I would have hated to leave this place." She touched his face, tracing the line of his cheek, and brushing away a few strands of hair. He could sense her happiness, flickers of memory. Mary recruiting him to help with the laundry, Mary attempting to teach Rizelle how to bake bread, Mary somehow getting away with scolding Genai for "spoiling his supper" by stealing a donut. At the same time, these images were touched by sadness. "I will hate to leave this place," she said, and the word leave was so wrapped in finality, he knew that this was a euphemism for dying. "I'll hate to leave you--I'm sorry, Chrono."

"You have nothing to be sorry for," Chrono said. "Not for--leaving."


	3. Bound by Hope

Mary wrote the way monks once copied ancient manuscripts. She wrote without thinking or reading the words, simply letting the words form beneath the nib of her pen. She wrote until her hand cramped, her vision blurred, and her head ached--and it still wasn't enough. The vast ocean of information she swam in never shrank, no matter how much of it she put down on paper. She wrote knowing she was going to drown eventually.

Sometimes when she worked, a nimbus would form around her, the paper she wrote on and even the ink would glow. Those were the times when the Presence of Pandaemonium was the strongest, when it tried to take her over. The psychic battles between herself and the mindless Presence could go on for hours, or only minutes, and seemed to cause the Sinners a great deal of discomfort. Shader dubbed the effect "visible spectrum bleedoff" and readjusted the sensors to accommodate the power spikes that sometimes shorted out her equipment. Aion called it one more thing to worry about, and Genai started calling her "Lightning Bug."

She had just started another page when the pen was plucked from her fingers. She looked up with a glare. "Aion! I was in the middle of a sentence!"

"That was your hundredth page, Mary. It's time to rest," the demon said, holding the pen out of reach. "You missed breakfast."

"I wasn't hungry," Mary said, standing up. "And there's still so much to write down," she said, and yawned. Aion and Chrono had taken to bullying her into eating and sleeping. She wasn't sure if she should be amused or annoyed by this.

"It'll still be there after supper, and I missed our morning argument," Aion said with a an expression of entirely false injury on his face. "I had the perfect response to the mystical rubbish you inflicted on me last night."

Mary smiled, remembering the conversation in question. He had been asking questions about miracles and the Apostle factor, and the conversation had wandered into territory Aion didn't feel comfortable with. _How funny that a demon would be uncomfortable with the supernatural. _Or more accurately, with certain aspects of the supernatural. In addition to being an atheist, or perhaps because of being an atheist, Aion didn't believe that the intellect survived death, and refused to believe that she literally spoke to the dead.

"Shouting that Mary is wrong and you're right?" Chrono asked with a slight grin as they exited the room. He held a picnic basket over one arm, and held a jug of what was probably cider in his other arm. "That's what it usually amounts to."

Aion gave Chrono an annoyed look. "I don't shout." He turned to Mary. "Did you want to eat in here, or outside?"

Mary smiled. "Outside, your voice always seems louder when you're shouting inside."

"I do not shout!" Aion protested loudly.

Laughing, both Mary and Chrono walked out of the infirmary, with Aion still protesting his innocence.

"I wanted to let you know that the Order apparently hasn't given up on getting you back," Aion said once they had emptied the contents of the basket onto the table. "Or I should say, two specific members of the Order."

Mary felt a twinge of guilt-worry. "Oh," she said, almost afraid to ask _who,_and find out that something horrible had all ready happened to them. "Aion, I know I shouldn't ask, but--"

"We haven't decided what to do yet," Aion said, and glanced at Chrono. "Chrono thinks theymight actually be useful."

"Useful?" Mary asked, turning her attention to Chrono, who nodded.

"I think they might be able to help," Chrono said, giving Aion a covert look. Something seemed to pass between them, because Aion snorted and looked away. "I think if we can't get rid of Pandaemonium, that we might find a way to create a barrier, a holy barrier, to bind Her."

* * *

The walls ceiling and floor were gray. The floor was made of a soft, spongy material that gave under his weight, then slowly sprang back into its original shape. The walls were made of a slightly more resilient substance. Light came from what looked like an opaque white glass ball in the center of the ceiling. The light would periodically turn off for a length of time that Ewan thought was between four to six hours. Food and water appeared at what Ewan assumed were regular intervals, one before, and one after each period of darkness. In one corner of the room was a depression with a drain at the bottom that served as a toilet.

He thought he might have been a prisoner in this strange place for a little longer than a week, and the only thing he knew was that his captors were demons. In that time he had seen no one, and all of his attempts to get the attention of his jailers and discover the whereabouts of his partner had failed. The only thing he remembered prior to awakening in the peculiar cell was a sharp report, like a gun firing, and smoke suddenly billowing up from the campfire. He had come to wearing a thin pair of trousers and a shirt nearly the same color as the walls.

On what might have been the ninth day, he was awakened by a voice that seemed to be coming from the ceiling. "Mr. Remington." The voice said, "Mr. Remington." The voice sounded male and insufferably smug. "Welcome to Eden, have you enjoyed your stay so far?"

"I can't say that I have," Ewan said cautiously. He sat up, and tried to pinpoint where the voice was coming from. He knew he should probably remain silent, but he had the feeling that his captor would be able to wait him out. "I'm afraid you have the advantage of me," he said. "Who might I be addressing?"

"My name is Aion, Mr. Remington. I believe you've already made the acquaintance of my brother Chrono?" The voice paused, very obviously enjoying Ewan's growing alarm. "Of course there was no time for introductions, as both he and Mary were in something of a hurry."

His suspicions realized, Ewan jumped to his feet. "Where is she? If you've harmed her--" he shouted.

"Chrono would never forgive me," the voice interjected, sounding amused. "We're all very fond of Mary. I'm sure even Genai would be put out if Mary were harmed."

Aion's tone was obscenely intimate, and made Ewan's temper boil. "What have you done to her?" Ewan demanded. Ever since Mary had been kidnapped, Ewan had been having nightmares about what horrors Mary might be suffering at the hands of the demon who had taken her. He had spent many sleepless nights in prayer, both for Mary's soul, and to keep those dreams at bay.

"Well, nothing at all like what you're thinking, Mr. Remington," the demon said, sounding amused--and disgusted. "Of course, if you don't believe me, you could ask her yourself. Please face the wall opposite the door with your wrists crossed. Failure to do so within five seconds will be considered a lack of desire to see Mary."

Ewan reluctantly did as he had been ordered, though he wasn't sure if the demon was serious about the implied promise to take him to see Mary.

"Thank you, Mr. Remington. I'd advise you not to move, otherwise we'll have to do this all over again," Aion said.

Ewan held very still as the door behind him slid open with a slight whoosh of air. He heard two people enter the room, and felt one of them take him by the arms, while the other snapped manacles over his wrists and ankles. "Don't think for a second we're doing this because we're afraid of you, human," one of them said. "This is just to keep you from doing anything too stupid." They turned him around, and Ewan got his first good look at two of his captors. One was tall and thin, and he wore a blind fold over his eyes, and a Stetson perched low over his brow. The other was even taller, and built like a brick wall. "I'm Genai, this is Viede," the tall thin one said, pointing at the taller broad one. "Come on," Genai said, and headed out of the cell. After a moment's hesitation, Ewan followed, and Viede brought up the rear.

The demons didn't make any attempt to walk him in circles or double back to confuse him about the layout of their lair. They also ignored his few attempts to ask questions. Ewan noted that despite the blindfold covering his eyes the demon Genai didn't seem to have difficulty finding his way around. They led him down several hallways, and up two flights of stairs until they reached a closed door. "Don't get Mary upset, she's feeling poorly," Genai said.

"I thought she hadn't been harmed," Ewan said, glaring.

"Don't be a jackass," Genai said. _"We _didn't do a damn thing to her." The demon stepped forward, and knocked on the door. "Mary, we brought him." He paused, as if he were listening to something, and opened the door.

Beyond the door was a parlor that looked like it could have been the formal parlor of an affluent human family. Mary was seated (Ewan wanted to say "enthroned") in a leather upholstered wingback chair, her feet propped up by a matching leather ottoman. She smiled at him, for all the world as if he were just paying a call. "Hello, Ewan." Viede pushed him into the room, and he almost stumbled, before righting himself. She frowned. "Viede, was that really necessary? And why is he chained up?"

"Master Aion's orders, Mary," Viede said.

"Really," Mary said. Her tone didn't seem to indicate anything, but Genai grinned, and Viede winced. "Is he listening?" Her gaze tilted briefly toward the ceiling.

"You said you wanted a private conversation with the human, Mary," Genai said, still grinning. "We'll leave you to him." Genai tilted his hat, Viede nodded, and both demons left the room, closing the door behind them.

"Are you all right, Ewan?" Mary asked once the demons had left the room. "They promised you and your partner wouldn't be harmed."

"Never mind me, Mary. I'm more worried for you. I--what's going on here?" To his admittedly weak sixth sense he could sense that _something_wasn't right about Mary, but he couldn't identify the threat. "And where is Patrick?"

"Patrick is in the infirmary, he turned out to be allergic to the chemical used on you both," Mary said. "He became very sick. He's all right now though," Mary said reassuringly. "What's going on is--complicated. I _am _here of my own free will however."

"Mary, you can't mean that, you were kidnapped--"

"Ewan, I told Chrono the precise attack you were about to make, and how much time he had to evade it. I knew to within fifteen minutes the moment he would arrive, and I knew what his first words to me would be. Please tell me how I could have been kidnapped?" Mary said, sounding fond and exasperated all at once.

He had no answer to that. Ewan had wondered, then hadn't allowed himself to wonder, not wanting to believe that Mary had somehow _helped_her captors. "Why would you have aided them?" Ewan asked. _How could you have aided them?_

"Why wouldn't I? They needed my help," Mary said so simply and bluntly that for a moment all Ewan could do was stare. "Yes, I _do_ realize they're demons," she said before his next question could surface. "I went with Chrono because he asked. I helped us both escape because neither of us wanted to hurt anyone."

_A demon that didn't want anyone to be hurt? _"Escape?" Ewan said. "From where? The Order sheltered you and protected you, Mary from anyone that might try to use your gifts to their own benefit." How had the demons managed to turn her against the Order so quickly? How far back had they had their claws in her?

"I'm grateful for that shelter, believe me," Mary said. "I learned a great deal--but Chrono and the other Sinners needed me more than the Order did." She smiled at him. "That's what the other demons call them. heretics might be a little closer to the mark, or revolutionaries. I care for them a great deal." She paused, and her expression became almost impish. "And I'm not just saying that because Aion is spying on the conversation."

"Passive only, Mary," a woman's voice said. "In case something happened."


	4. Bound by Faith

In the months since she had come to Eden, she had grown used to the Sinners' periodic visits to her chamber within the infirmary, and before that, to her room. She much preferred the company and companionship of the Sinners to the reverence and stifling overprotectiveness of the Order. The Sinners respected her, but didn't put her up on a pedestal. (Except perhaps Chrono, but that was different.)

Demons didn't seem have the strict notions of propriety humans seemed to have as far as feminine modesty was concerned--or it might be better say, had different standards of propriety. To a demon there was nothing wrong or improper about a man spending unchaperoned time in the room of an unrelated woman. (Mary suspected however that even if demons had that prohibition, Aion would choose to break it.)

"Has it ever been tried before?" Mary asked, looking up from her writing to meet the demon's gaze.

Aion, currently sprawled indolently across her bed, scowled and looked away. "No."

"Then you don't actually know whether it will work, do you?" Mary pointed out reasonably. Despite everything, he seemed more like a sullen schoolboy than a powerful demon at the moment.

"Pandaemonium is beyond anything your priests will be familiar with Mary. You _know_what she is!" Aion said forcefully, and sat up, swinging his legs off the bed so that he perched on the edge, feet splayed on the floor.

"But they don't, do they?" Mary said reasonably. "I propose we let them find out."

"I think the only reason you're arguing this, is because you _hope_they succeed," Aion growled.

Mary bit her tongue to keep from snapping, _and do you hope they fail? _"I don't deny that, Aion," Mary said instead, and set down her pen to face Aion. "I'd like for you to be wrong, I'd like for Ewan and Patrick to succeed. I realize and accept that they most likely won't."

"Then why--?"

"Because they won't offer their full attention and cooperation to the problem, unless they understand the nature of the problem, Aion."

* * *

Chrono found Ewan out on one of the balconies, wind ruffling his short blond hair. Ewan's thoughts as he looked out at the endless blue sky were full of fear and concern for Mary, and that as much as anything made Chrono feel charitably toward the human. (That the human did not return the feeling didn't matter.)

Chrono stepped out onto the balcony. "Good morning, Father Remington," he said politely to announce his presence before approaching the railing. If he were Aion, he would have made some dry comment about Mary having missed him at breakfast. Instead, he moved to lean against the railing, his arms folded on top of the rail.

The soldier gave him a sideways glare. "Why are you the only one who calls me 'Father'?"

"Because it's your rank," Chrono said. "Isn't it?"

Ewan frowned at him. "Not the--not the way that you mean," he said after several minutes. "It's a title of respect."

"But you're annoyed when Aion calls you 'Mister,' which is also a title of respect," Chrono said reasonably. "The engineer however doesn't seem care what he's called." The two primary interests of the engineer seemed to be staring at Rizelle or Shader's breasts and taking apart every device and machine he could get his hands on.

"Patrick's primary vocation isn't to The Church, or the Order," Ewan said with a frown. "He joined so that he could expand his knowledge of alchemy."

"What is your vocation?" Chrono asked. This earned him another sideways glare, this one more acidic than the last.

"To exorcise evil spirits and kill devils," Ewan said darkly. He pushed away from the rail, as if he were about to leave. Chrono followed the priest's movement, aligning himself so that he faced Ewan, offering him the courtesy of his attention, though the soldier wouldn't know what that meant. "I tire of this line of questioning."

"We both want to save Mary, Father," Chrono said softly. "Were I you, I'd want to know as much about my allies as possible."

Ewan flushed. "We are not allies," he growled. "I want to save Mary from _you."_

"I want to save her from Pandaemonium."

"She wouldn't need saving if you hadn't kidnapped her," Ewan ground out.

"Agreed," Chrono said, which seemed to startle the soldier. "If she hadn't wanted to leave, if she hadn't actively helped me take her, you and most of your brothers would be dead, and more blood would be on my hands."

Ewan was silent. Chrono could sense his turmoil. Demons were creatures of violence and anger, why would a demon want to avoid murder? Instead of asking that Ewan said, "or, we might have defeated you, and Mary would be safe."

Chrono closed his eyes a moment, and remembered holding the body of one of his brothers in his arms. He remembered that body disintegrating into ash as he killed a hundred viscounts with one wild blast of power. Instead of revealing the extent of his power he said, "perhaps." He took a breath, and met Ewan's gaze. "Aion has heard your proposal; he's willing to let you make an attempt at exorcising Mary."

* * *

"I should never have agreed to this," Aion growled to Chrono as he watched the priests make their preparations. His claws dug sharply into the flesh of his palms as he clenched his hands into fists. He stood in front of the observation bay window, which had been set to one-way transparency to give the priests the illusion of privacy. They were restraining her to the bed, and blessing the observation bay, preparing the room for the rite of exorcism. Mary looked calm and serene, smiling reassuringly in his direction.

Neither priest had believed Aion when he had told them that their rites wouldn't work on Mary. Aion had let himself be talked into allowing the ritual to take place. He scowled at Mary, even though she couldn't see him.

"You don't know that it won't work, since it's never been tried," Chrono said, paraphrasing Mary's primary argument.

"It's never been tried, because it won't work," Aion muttered.

"A circular argument isn't one." Chrono smiled innocently under the pressure of Aion's glare.

"Barrier is up," Shader said from her work station. "Astral level two percent and climbing. Mary's lifesigns are stable."

The ritual began, and if the subject of the rite hadn't been Mary, Aion would have been fascinated by the proceedings. The priests chanted and prayed, exhorting the possessing spirit to appear in the name of their god. The holy water and incense didn't seem to have any affect on Mary, but the floor tiles smoked where droplets fell. The priests seemed unsettled, but continued to demand the presence of the possessing spirit.

"They can't continue to the next part of the rite until the possessing spirit responds," Mary said aloud.

Aion nodded, though she couldn't see him acknowledge her. He smirked when Ewan mistook Mary's comment as a comment made by Pandaemonium. "I have a feeling this is going to take a long time," he murmured. I didn't realize that something was wrong, until Pandaemonium spoke through her, Aion thought. And these priests can't seem to sense anything either.

"Astral level has increased to ten percent. Mary's trying to control her breathing," Shader said. "Brain activity indicative of a near-trance state. I think she might be trying to access something."

"Pandaemonium?" Aion asked quickly, not taking his eyes away from the scene.

"I don't know," Shader said. Then, "oh no."

"What is it?"

"Aion, Chrono, get down _now!" _Shader shouted, and ducked behind her workstation as a horrible, sanity-burning scream ripped through their brains.

Chrono knocked Aion to the floor, wings mantled, as if he were trying to somehow shield Aion from the psychic blast. Aion curled, his hands uselessly clamped over his ears as the scream went on and on. He was vaguely aware that Chrono was screaming, and so was Shader. There were words mixed in the scream, but he couldn't understand them, couldn't even be really sure they were words and not random sounds.

He shut his eyes against the blaze of light, but he could still see it painted against the lids of his eyes._ Wings, _he thought dazedly. _Wings of fire. _He could feel-hear-sense Mary battle with Pandaemonium, forcing Her back and down and away.

When the pain lancing through his head had abated, and the light had faded, Aion cautiously untangled himself from his brother, and rose to his feet. The observation window had turned black. "Shader?" He croaked, and helped Chrono to his feet. Aion's throat felt raw, and his lungs ached, as if he had also been screaming.

"My Lord?" Shader said in a shaky voice. She didn't emerge from behind her workstation.

Her words were echoed by Rizelle, who stumbled into the room on eight unsteady legs. Rizelle's eyes were bleeding, and she looked nearly berserk with fear and pain. "Master, the screaming doesn't stop!" She said wildly. "Master?" Genai and Viede entered close behind her, in their own battle forms.

Aion went to her immediately, catching her before she could ram herself into one of the examination tables. She flinched hard, then relaxed as she recognized him. "Rizelle, it's all right. Something went wrong," He said, trying to calm her, but when she kept repeating that the screaming wouldn't stop, he realized she couldn't hear him.

_"Rizelle. Calm. Please be calm," _Aion thought as clearly as he could, reaching up to touch one of her horns. Her entire body shuddered, and she slowly shrank down into her more human form. _"We're fine Rizelle."_

"It's not fair, it's not fair. I want to be of use, Master," Rizelle sobbed on his shoulder. "How can I be of use if I'm crippled?"

_"You are of use," _Aion said, and gently nudged her to one of the beds. _"Lie down, calm yourself. Let me see to Shader."_

"Was she hurt, Master Aion?" Rizelle asked. "What about Mary? Were we betrayed?"

_"Rest, Rizelle. Calm yourself. We are all one body, with one mind. You are still our eyes Rizelle, puppet master, infiltrator. Sleep now." _With a little pressure of his mind against hers, she fell asleep.

"We heard the scream," Genai said. "I think me and Viede blacked out for a minute, came to with Rizelle tearing down the hall, toward the infirmary, screaming about betrayal and Mary. What happened?"

"It seems the exorcism didn't go as Mr. Remington thought it would," Aion said hoarsely.

Aion turned, and found that Shader had come out from behind the workstation. Her tail lashed, and her ears were back as she tried to recover data from her sensors. "I'm better now, My Lord," she said in response to his query. "I-I'll check on Rizelle in a moment."

"Why is the window black?" Aion asked.

"Whatever happened knocked out our sensors, and destroyed the transparency," Shader said. "There was a huge power spike. I'm trying to fix the problem now." She tapped some more at the keys. "Three lifesigns, all three are unconscious but healthy," she said.

Aion let out a breath he hadn't known he'd been holding. "Can you get the door open?"


	5. Bound by Trust

Ewan poked at the contents of his plate. Breakfast was tinned meat and vegetables, not even heated. He would have thought this was some form of harrassment if Shader wasn't eating her breakfast directly from the tins, not even bothering to dump the contents onto a plate. As she ate, she chattered continuously to Patrick, waving her fork around for emphasis or to illustrate a point. The conversation had gone tangential five times in the past thirty minutes, and while Patrick didn't seem to be having any trouble keeping up, Ewan had lost track three subject changes ago.

He, Patrick and Shader were seated at some kind of table or desk near the infirmary entrance. Rizelle was still sleeping on one of the infirmary cots. The desk-table curved, and toward the center there was a section filled with raised hexagonal tiles. There was also a odd, hexagonal device with a glass front that made him think of a magic mirror in a fairy tale. Every once in a while the device would chime, and Shader would stop talking long enough to get up, and adjust something, muttering under her breath.

Mary was not in the infirmary. According to Shader, she had been taken elsewhere by Aion and Chrono. Where that elsewhere might be Shader either didn't know, or wouldn't tell him. The only thing he was certain of, was that the exorcism had failed. If he closed his eyes, he could still see the wings of fire Mary that had manifested during her struggle with Pandaemonium. Three pairs of wings, like those of a seraph. He could still feel the cold, impersonal mental contact of the Presence that possessed Mary, and still hear the screams of what had to be hundreds of Pandaemonium's previous victims--still in some sense bound or absorbed by the central Presence. Whatever that thing was, it wasn't alive in any sense of the word, nor was it a _being_\--he wasn't even sure the thing possessed anything like a soul. Mary had forced it back somehow, or so it had seemed to Ewan, before he and Patrick lost consciousness.

"Aion!" Shader said suddenly, and bounced to her feet as the leader of the Sinners entered the infirmary. He looked oddly rumpled and tired, quite unlike his usual immaculate self. "Would you like something to eat? I'm still running simulations. I managed to recover most of what the the sensors recorded before they burnt out."

The demon glanced at the tins, and smiled slightly. "No. I'll make something for myself, later. Let me know what your findings are." He turned to Ewan. "I'd like to speak with you, Mr. Remington. Privately." With that, he left the room, obviously expecting Ewan to follow.

Ewan hesitated, disliking the arrogance inherent in the demon's manner. The urge to snarl was always just under the surface, but he couldn't afford to let his emotions get away from him. He followed Aion out of the infirmary. The demon led him to one of the walkways that ringed the lower sections of Eden. The lack of railings made Ewan uneasy, but Aion walked with the swift self-assurance of an acrobat or tightrope walker (or someone who could fly, Ewan thought sourly).

"It was right here," Aion said, pointing down to a walkway twenty feet below them. "I had just discovered that Pandaemonium was taking over Mary. It was very clear to me that something had to be done--but I wasn't sure what. I came out here to think." Ewan wasn't quite sure what to name the expression on the demon's face. "I wasn't out here long before Mary brought Chrono out to that walkway down there. I listened in on their conversation, and heard her tell my brother that he was going to kill her. It was then that I came to a decision." A delicate pause. "I commanded Chrono to kill her."

If Aion's intent had been to make Ewan momentarily blind with rage, he succeeded admirably. Ewan took a deep breath, and another. Whatever might have happened, Mary was alive now--he concentrated on that thought, trying to master his anger. "Why?" He managed to get out after several minutes.

"That why has more than one possible answer," Aion said. "I'll only tell you one. The burden of Pandaemonium's Presence will eventually destroy her." The regret coloring the demon's voice was somehow more infuriating than a tone of indifference would have been.

"I hardly think you brought me out here to hear your confession," Ewan said coldly.

"Nor ask for absolution," Aion said dryly. "She picked this spot, Mr. Remington, just as she chose to escape the 'protection' of your Order. What does that tell you?"

"What conclusion do_you _draw from it?" Ewan asked, refusing to bridle at Aion's not-so-veiled stab at the Order. _He wanted to kill her, he almost did. Why does she seem to care so much for these demons, despite everything? _He didn't understand, he couldn't understand. He wanted to believe that Mary was under some kind of spell, that Mary's sheltered life had somehow affected her ability to tell right from wrong--but to believe either of those things would permanently tarnish his memories of Mary.

"We hold no particular reverence for what Mary is. We had no expectations of her, beyond her abilities." Aion said, as if he had heard Ewan's thoughts. "When she came here, she fit with us as if she were the missing piece of a puzzle. She was Chrono's confidant and Rizelle's friend, Shader's assistant and Genai and Viede's little sister." The demon smirked. "I thought she was naive, self-deluded. I allowed myself to underestimate her." A pause. "Like you're doing now, Mr. Remington."

"I'm not sure I understand you," Ewan said.

"I know," Aion said. "You think I'm trying to imply something, but what I'm doing is telling you something directly; Mary cannot predict the future."

"Mary's visions have always been accurate," Ewan said, even more confused than he'd been before.

"Of course they have," Aion said, looking amused. "But they'd been growing less so, hadn't they? As if Mary couldn't make up her mind about some detail?"

"I--yes," Ewan replied reluctantly.

"She cannot predict the future, but in a way, she can shape it," Aion said. "She sees multiple possible futures, Mr. Remington, and your Order has been making her choose--quite inadvertantly, because your science is woefully silent where quantum physics is concerned--the futures you want to come to pass."

* * *

A cool breeze that brought the scent of turned earth from the garden fluttered the drapes. Mary blinked sleepily at the sunlight streaming through the window. _But the lab doesn't have any windows, _she thought with sleepy confusion. She also wasn't alone in the bed--Chrono slept curled on his side, with his back to her. His naked back. She could reach out and stroke him as if he were a cat if she wanted, trace the knobs of his spine... She blushed at the thought. Mary knew more about the mechanics of what went on between a man and a woman than most unmarried women her age--she couldn't avoid it, not when she contained the lifetimes of multitudes--but she was innocent of the actual physical act. _And this isn't even the act, _she thought, amused by her own chagrin. _This is just waking up in a bed, and appreciating the view. _

She was just mustering up the courage to awaken Chrono, when the door opened, and Aion entered the room. "Awake at last," he said softly as he entered the room, shutting the door behind him. "How do you feel?"

"Confused," Mary said, and carefully sat up.

"Hmm. What's the last thing you remember?" Aion asked.

The last thing she remembered was the iron voice of Pandaemonium beating against her skull. And screams. "I--the exorcism. What happened?" Were Ewan and Patrick all right?

"It failed, but what ever you did--it seems to have knocked Pandaemonium off her feet," Aion said.

"Oh." Is that what had happened? Her wings had appeared, stretching to their fullest extent, and the voice had receded--but had not been banished, she could still sense the Presence at the every edge of her awareness. "Why am I in--?" She remembered Chrono bending over her now. She remembered his and Aion's voice, but she hadn't been able to understand what they'd been trying to say at the time, she hadn't even known what language they were speaking in.

"You wouldn't let Chrono go, when he went to see if you were all right," Aion said with a faint, teasing grin. "So we took you to Chrono's room--and you wouldn't let either of us leave, until you fell asleep."

"Oh my."

"I assure you your virtue has not been compromised, Miss," he said with gentle mockery. "Your--friends are in the infirmary. Neither of them were harmed, though Shader will undoubtedly want to run tests." Aion crossed over to Chrono's side of the bed, and sat on the edge. "Still asleep?" He said to his brother, who didn't reply, except to mumble something that sounded like, "why fractal geometry? I'm never going to use this!"

"Some complaints are universal, it seems," Mary murmured. She remembered hearing that same complaint, _I'm never going to use this, _from her classmates when she'd been going to the Order's school. She had made the complaint herself from time to time. Of course, the other complaint she'd usually made was_I already know this! _

Aion looked amused. "Wake up Chrono, you're having a nightmare." He tipped Chrono onto his back, and stretched out beside him. Chrono mumbled something, this time in the demon language, and his eyes blinked open, and focussed on his brother. Their positions relative to each other were so comfortably intimate, that Mary stood up from the bed, wondering if she should leave. Her movement drew their attention however, and she held still, feeling pinned by their gaze.

"You don't have to go, Mary," Aion said in a warm, inviting tone, his eyes alight with an affectionate sort of mischief.

"Aion," Chrono said, half in question, half in sleepy annoyance. "You're making her uncomfortable."

"Your state of undress is making her more uncomfortable, brother," Aion said. Chrono growled something under his breath that made Aion laugh.

'Uncomfortable' wasn't even close to what she felt when she looked at Chrono. He was a handsome young man, and so was his brother. The depth of their affection for each other had been disturbing at first, but (mostly) because of the rift she had sensed between them that had been as great as the affection. She did not judge them by the standards of her country, which would have damned them for sodomy, at the least--she was not that foolish, or that arrogant. _When in Rome... _

She smiled at both of them. "I--well, it seemed as if you'd want to be alone." She drifted closer to the bed, unconsciously smoothing her sleep-wrinkled dress. "Was I wrong?" She settled back onto the bed.

"You're presence is always welcome, Mary," Aion said with a suggestive smile.

Chrono exhaled sharply, a sound that was nearly a hiss. "Aion, stop flirting with Mary, she's too good for you," he said in a ragging tone.

"Are you any more worthy?" Aion retorted in pretended affront.

"I think you're both too good for each other," Mary interjected slyly. Both Aion and Chrono gave her a startled look. She grinned at them, and impulsively leaned forward to give each of them a kiss; on the brow for Chrono, and on the cheek for Aion. "Compromise my virtue?" Mary asked with sarcastic sweetness. _"Hah."_Aion to her amazement, looked chagrinned. She left him to explain her comment to Chrono.


	6. Bound by Love

"You were _flirting_with her," Chrono said once Mary had left the room. Aion had teased the both of them before now, but there had been something different about the teasing this time. As if he were honestly considering courtship.

"In all fairness, Mary flirted back," Aion said, looking amused.

Chrono felt himself flush. "I don't think she was serious. I don't think she really realized how she sounded." He remembered her teasing him about the state of his poncho while mending it, her declaration that he'd never find a lover with his clothes in such a state. If another devil had taken to mending his clothes, cooking his meals or otherwise showed an interest in his personal welfare, it would have been a clear sign of interest, and courting might have ensued. With Mary, it was simply because she wanted to help any way she could.

Aion's brows lifted. "No? Do tell. It appeared to me as if she knew exactly how she sounded."

"Even if she knows things, she hasn't really experienced anything she's seen directly," Chrono said, feeling defensive. Then he grinned, remembering something that had happened when Aion had been pre-adolescent. "Sort of like the difference between reading the manual, and operating the flyer. Like the one you crashed into dormitory six."

Aion growled, and punched Chrono in the arm. "You would remember that," he said.

"I don't think I'd ever be able to forget it," Chrono said with a grin. "I was punished too."

Aion threw another punch, but this time, Chrono caught Aion by the wrist. They fought briefly, rolling around on the bed, and at once point, nearly off of it. Aion would always be the better swordsman, but when they wrestled, they were very nearly equal, though Chrono had a slight advantage in weight and strength. The fight ended with Aion flat on his back, breathless with laughter and cursing, his wrists pinned above his head. "Is this any way to treat your Liege?" Aion asked, and squirmed, rubbing up against Chrono. The friction made Chrono groan softly, but he didn't release his grip.

_It is if you do that, _Chrono thought, and kissed Aion on the mouth. Aion shivered beneath him, his eyes fluttering shut. Chrono kept kissing, nipping at Aion's bottom lip before slanting down to nuzzle and lick warm, smooth skin under Aion's jaw, and just below the ear. Aion shivered again, chin tilting upward. "Command me to stop," Chrono murmured in Aion's ear.

"If I did that, you would. Do I look like an idiot to you?" Aion retorted, then moaned softly when Chrono found a sensitive place to torment.

"Do you really want me to answer that, Master?" Chrono said, his smile widening. Aion's growled suggestion for what he could do made Chrono laugh.

* * *

_"Anecdotal evidence isn't going to give us an accurate baseline, Shader."_

_"Master, I have exactly one test subject. All we have is anecdotal evidence, and the monitors we have on Mary."_

_"And we don't exactly have the resources to create a research group. How much time does she have?"_

_"Anywhere between two and six months, depending on how much power she uses."_

Eden drifted above cloudfields dyed pink-silver by the morning light. The wind was cold and laden with microscopic ice crystals, and the atmosphere filtered blue and red-pink. Aion sat on the ledge above the catwalk where months ago, he had confronted Mary and Chrono. He watched the sun appear to rise above the horizon, and pretended he wasn't thinking about the results of Shader's tests.

Aion's primary concern had been mind-death, the death that destroyed the personality, but left the body living and breathing. He had feared seeing the death of self, of a stranger looking out of once-familiar eyes. The idea of Pandaemonium looking at him through Mary's eyes had made him sick with anger. (Sick with horror, though he'd never admit this aloud. The malicious, alien expression on Mary's face had been like a knife in the gut.)

His _primary_fear had been what might happen if Mary somehow reached the Forbidden Zone--the place he had touched during the Tuning Ceremony. Mary had seemed so delicate, so fragile, mere flesh and bone. She was only human, not someone who could withstand either Pandaemonium or the horrors he'd seen in the Forbidden Zone. A human couldn't hope to survive the things he'd seen, the things he'd learned.

She had said: Aion, what's happening now, what you say is happening, I've gone through before.

He had said: Impossible.

Aion closed his eyes, and leaned his head back against the wall. The Mary he knew was a personality that had developed in the wake of a massive download of information. The Mary he knew had no way of discovering the little girl whose mind had been overshadowed by who knew how many thousands of human lives. "Did she know what was happening to her, Mary?" Aion asked, sensing her presence. "The child you were."

"You know I can't really answer that, Aion," Mary said. He heard the rustle of her skirts as she sat down beside him. She had been baking bread, and the warm scent clung to her. (Aion privately thought that fresh baked bread, and possibly xocolatl almost excused humanity from being barely tolerable hypocrites.) "She was probably frightened. There are so many terrible things that have happened--but there have been glorious things as well."

"So you say," Aion said. He peered at her, with eyes half-lidded. She was wearing a brightly patterned Diné blanket as a shawl over her dress. Chrono had given it to her, along with a new pair of shoes when he'd returned from the monthly supply run.

"So I know," Mary said, smiling at him. "You all, and by all I mean both the Sinners and Ewan and Patrick, wonder why I don't see any difference between humans and devils. You've never asked what similarities I see between humans and devils."

"Are there any?" Aion smirked, baring his teeth, and brushed his hair over one long pointed ear.

"You're flesh and blood, as much as I am, Aion. And spirit as well," Mary said. "You reason and feel even as I do, though not in the way that I do."

"I don't think anyone could think as you do, Mary," Aion said. She didn't flinch or even look away. If anything, she seemed amused, as if she were elder-sister to him, and he only a child. Chrono accepted that, accepted the role of the younger brother, but Aion reacted to it as a challenge. "My kind are..." Frankensteinian monsters. Homunuculi. "More different than you can understand--even if you had formal training in the sciences of your kind, even if you were as knowledgable as the engineer, I would not be able to explain that difference."

"You are still flesh and blood," Mary said. "That there is a difference, and that I don't understand the difference, doesn't matter."

"It does matter!" Aion said, pushing away from the wall to kneel at Mary's side. "In this world, shape and kind matter--even if you don't care, the world is full of those who do. Your own difference, and the way you were kept away from the world, 'protected' by people who used you, should tell you that!"

Mary gave him an ironic look. "Do you refer to the Order, or the Sinners?"

Aion stared at Mary a moment, and then laughed. "The world, perhaps." He put a hand over hers, gently wrapping his fingers around her chilled hand. On impulse, he turned her hand palm up, and pressed a kiss into her palm. She gave him a startled look, blushing slightly, which made him smile. Mary's blanket slid down as she cupped her free hand over Aion's. "I respect what Chrono sees in you, I respect your strength, though I hadn't expected that," he said softly. "Not the respect, and not the strength." Aion paused for a moment. "But that strength will falter. The research I have done, and Shader's simulations suggest that the use of that strength takes a great toll on the human body."

She gave him a slight, sad smile. "That is the difference between humans and devils. By some agency peculiar to your kind, your flesh is unburdened by the power you use."

It was his turn for surprise. What she said wasn't quite accurate, but it was close. He bit his tongue to keep from asking, did you figure that out by yourself? "I said I would let you fight," he said. I don't think I can watch Chrono watch you die. "But the battle--"

"Did you come out here to decide whether or not to tell me?" She asked.

"I came out here hoping that I wouldn't have to," Aion said. "I hoped that you'd already know."

* * *

They walked hand in hand through the outer, lower sections of Eden. Aion's hand felt warm and secure in her own, and she found herself leaning against him as they walked. They didn't speak, each lost in their own thoughts, though when their eyes met, Aion would smile or squeeze her hand gently, and Mary would smile in return. They had no set destination in mind, though Mary noted they were taking a round-about route toward the gardens, one that avoided the sections that the Sinners lived in. It almost felt romantic, and might have been if she'd been walking alone with Chrono--but with Aion, she could never really be sure.

Mary had loved Chrono from the first. (He was easy to love, both blushing boy and dutiful soldier. Her knight, and her red-handed killer.) Her first memories had been of Chrono, the first memories that were her very own, and not someone else's. (With memory came thought, and with thought came identity.) His name had been one of the first words she'd spoken when she had first awakened, a child with no memories of her own past, only of her future. Her future memories of him had been events she became impatient to experience directly, even if it meant her death.

Aion was proud as Lucifer, and sometimes cruel (though he never seemed to realize it). At the same time, he was intelligent, determined, and charismatic. Like all the Sinners, she knew him only in relation to her own present and future-present memories. The lives and pasts of demons were closed to her except for shadows she had trouble interpreting. (In a way, it had been a relief to touch and be touched, and not hold herself aloof lest she be overwhelmed by someone else's life.) Aion was even more opaque, only great anger or great fear caused his control to slip, and the hints of why he needed that control frightened her sometimes. Something terrible had happened to Aion, to all of the Sinners, something they never spoke of, though it was always present.

"We are alike in that," Aion said suddenly. They had stopped in front of a elevator that would take them to the garden level of Eden. He smiled. "It's easier to read you when we're in physical contact," he said, explaining his comment. He activated the elevator, and they stepped inside. "We're alike because something happened to the both of us, that changed us."

"You feared that similarity," Mary said, remembering previous conversations. Aion said nothing for a moment, pushing the button for the top floor. The doors whisked shut, and the elevator slowly rose.

"Yes," Aion admitted. "And I can't explain why. There are too many reasons, all equally true.


	7. Bound by Time

The game four of the Sinners were playing involved a six-sided board marked with a grid of triangles. How many pieces were moved, and who moved next was apparently decided by the roll of a die. Each player had twelve pieces, which could be moved two spaces forward, once backward or either side. Shader was teaching Patrick the rules of the game while beating the pants off of her "siblings," who seemed to be getting increasingly annoyed by her teasing. It was a strangely domestic scene, the warmth the Sinners seemed to feel for each other plain even under the irritated looks and sniping.

Ewan watched, troubled by the events of the past few days, and his recent conversation with Aion. _"She picked this spot, Mr. Remington, just as she chose to escape the 'protection' of your Order. What does that tell you?" _The question that Aion had asked him two days ago still haunted him. Mary had chosen to leave the abbey to go with Chrono. Mary had _chosen _the spot where she knew she would die. Mary had _chosen_to aid the Sinners in whatever they were planning. She had done all of these things, and Ewan still wasn't any closer to understanding _why._

At the table, Shader squealed in dismay as two of her siblings teamed up to capture most of her pieces. Ewan shook his head in amusement, and walked away. He had intended to return to his room, but the sound of voices--unfamiliar voices, speaking in the demon language--distracted him from his route.

Following the sound to its source, he found Chrono in the room the Sinners used as a library. There were books on the shelves, as well as newspapers and magazines. There were also stacks of small rectangular objects which both Mary and Patrick said contained "recordings" both of sound and of images. Chrono sat on one of the couches in the room, eyes closed and head tilted back. On a low table next to him was aspherical device on a circular base. Like a fortuneteller's crystal ball, Ewan thought. The sound seemed to be coming from the device.

Chrono straightened when Ewan entered the room. "Hello Father Remington," Chrono said.

"What are you listening to?" Ewan asked.

"The Wind Sorcerer. It's an old story," Chrono replied. "About the pilot of a...flying machine. His vehicle crashes in a strange land, and he must cross enemy territory to return home. It's one of my favorites." A very slight smile. "I translated some of it for Mary."

It seemed strange to think of demons having their own stories--just as strange as thinking of a demon who translated one so that a human could read it. As strange as a demon who avoided violence. As strange as demons who argued over a board game. Part of him wanted to shout, _quit pretending to be people! You're monsters! _There was so much he wanted to ask, but he wasn't sure he could frame the words properly, for all the rhetoric he'd learned in school. "Aion told me that he commanded you to kill Mary," Ewan said. The bluntness of his words felt indecent, obscene, but he could see no other way to phrase it.

"Yes," Chrono said, just as bluntly. "She is our friend. I couldn't kill her, when we've all ready lost so many friends. And," Chrono faltered, cheeks reddening slightly. "She's known of me since she was a child. She was _waiting _for me. She wanted to know me, even knowing what would happen."

There was an odd, stunned look in the demon's eyes. An expression Ewan never would have thought a demon capable of. "You love her."

The flush deepened. The look the demon turned on him was almost defiant. "I do," Chrono said. "Don't you? That's why I thought you might be able to help Mary."

Ewan startled slightly at that, put off-balance by what Chrono had said. "I care for Mary a great deal, but I'm not sure I understand why that would have been a factor," Ewan said. _We all did. She was always so kind and compassionate. _He had been a young postulant, barely twelve when he'd first met her. Though they had both been the same age, she had seemed so much older, distant and mature. Somehow, he'd always seen her as an adult._What does Chrono see her as?_

The demon tilted his head slightly. "If you hated her, or feared her for consorting with demons, or simply for being powerful, would you be willing to expend your energies to help her, to work at finding a way to save her, even if threatened?"

"I-I'm not sure how to answer that." He would have liked to say that Christian charity would have been reason enough to help someone in need, even if that person consorted with demons. _The ideal is often far from the reality, however. _Charity stretched only so far. "I would like to think I would help anyone in need," Ewan said finally. "No matter their allegiance."

"But you agreed to help because you love her," Chrono said.

Ewan looked away at that. It was disturbing how much those alien, sympathetic eyes saw. "I did," he admitted softly.

"Another rival for your affections Mary?" Aion asked, voice light and mocking. "Your dance card is getting very full."

Ewan turned to see Aion enter with Mary's hand tucked in the crook of his arm. Her hair was disarranged, cheeks slightly flushed, and she wore a brightly patterned Indian blanket as a shawl. She gave Aion an exasperated look, and once again, Ewan couldn't help but notice again the easy familiarity she had with these devils. "Ewan isn't a rival," she said, her mouth tilting at the corners.

Ewan could hear Chrono standing up behind him, muttering something under his breath that Ewan didn't quite catch, but which made Aion smirk. "No? I was looking forward to being challenged to a duel," the demon "king" said.

The offhand arrogance in the remark set Ewan's teeth on edge, but he was determined not to let the demon derive any entertainment from his reaction. "Mary, I was worried," he said instead. "I'm glad to see that you're well. No one seemed willing to let either myself or Patrick know how you were."

"For now, I'm well," Mary said with a smile.

"For now," Aion echoed, but in an entirely different tone of voice, one that made Chrono step forward with the speed of a striking snake. Neither Aion or Mary flinched at the sudden movement, though Ewan had almost reached for the pistol that wasn't at his side. Not taking his eyes off of the other demon, Aion said, "Mr. Remington, there's a matter I need to discuss with my brother. Mary will be able to fill you in."

The look on Mary's face cautioned him not to bridle at the dismissal. "Of course," Ewan said. "I'll see you later then, Chrono, Lord Aion." He carefully made his way between the two demons, and offered his elbow to Mary. "What was that about, Mary?" Ewan asked once they were well down the hall. Once they'd left the room, the door had slammed shut behind them. Ewan might have been inclined to listen at the keyhole as it were, but Mary's grip tightened with surprising strength, and she nearly marched him away from the room.

"I need to speak with you and Patrick," Mary said. "I...we don't have a lot of time left, and there's a great deal I must tell both of you."

* * *

Aion told Chrono everything, sparing no detail. Chrono's reaction surprised him. He had expected an explosion. When Chrono had timeshifted forward with his claws out, Aion had expected it to be followed by a punch, or a firebolt. Instead, Mary and Ewan had left the room, the door had slammed shut, and Chrono listened.

"How long?" Chrono asked softly, once Aion had finished.

"Six months, perhaps more, perhaps less," Aion said. His throat felt very dry suddenly. "If she doesn't push herself."

"She'll push herself," Chrono said with a faint smile. "Will you let her?"

"It's her choice," Aion said. _I don't understand why you made this choice, _Aion thought, and wasn't sure if the thought addressed Chrono, Mary, or himself. "She's managed to recover at least seventy eight percent of the data we lost when we destroyed the head." A pause. "Shader says we've learned as much from Mary and the priests as we have from the recovery project."

"Does _she_know?" Chrono asked.

Which meant, Aion supposed, _are you trying to keep this from her, as if she were a child or of lesser intelligence, and needing to be protected with kindly meant lies? _"I told her first," Aion said. "She wasn't surprised. She's telling the priests as we speak." Divide and conquer. Mary would tell the priests, he would tell Chrono and the others.

"What are you going to do about them?"

Aion studied his brother for a moment. Something in Chrono's manner indicated silently, _I will of course obey you, but my continued obedience depends on your answer. If you answer incorrectly, forget about ever commanding me again. _It was a lot to say with one dark look, so Aion took his time about replying. "I won't order you or anyone else to kill them," Aion said finally. "They're a liability however."

"I don't agree," Chrono said.

Aion tried to smile. "I liked you better when you were obedient to my will."

"If you wanted my obedience--without thought--you never should have challenged me to think for myself," Chrono said with a sharp-edged smile. "Both the priest and the engineer are committed to helping Mary, they won't betray her, by betraying us."

Aion thought about that. "I wish there were a way you could guarantee that," Aion said finally. "I have no idea _why _you continue to think of humans in such a positive light. Aside from Mary, I don't see what _you _see in them."

Chrono's smile was infuriating. "I can't guarantee it, but I know they won't betray us."

Aion blew out an exasperated breath. "You just contradicted yourself, you realize."

"You also taught me that life is full of contradictions." Chrono's expression turned serious. "Aion, you once told me that having pity on the dead is the arrogance of the living. Grieving isn't pity for the dead. It's compassion for the survivors."

"Mary isn't dead yet," Aion growled, surprising himself. He hadn't expected the surge of emotion at the thought of Mary's death. _I am committed to her fight, even though I know she's losing, _he realized. It was a surprising, even frightening thought. _She has changed Chrono, helped in ways that I couldn't. Has she also changed me? _

"I know," Chrono said. "She's dying. When her power fails, and Pandaemonium finally overwhelms her, we have to destroy what's left. When she dies, I'll grieve for her absence in our lives--but now I want to make her last days happy ones."

"Then we'll do that," Aion said.

* * *

In some ways, nothing changed.

The barriers erected by both Ewan and the Sinners held. Mary continued to write down as much as she could recover from Pandaemonium. Chrono and Aion continued to bully her into resting and eating.

In other ways, things changed a great deal. Patrick and Ewan left, delivering her letter to the Order, advising them of as much of the situation as Mary felt safe to relate. (Not a great deal; she only told them that she wasn't being held prisoner, was there of her own free will, and that she was dying, through no fault of the Sinners.) She didn't know how much they would believe of what she wrote, only hoped that the Order would have the sense to leave the Sinners in peace.

Aion and Chrono began a campaign of individual and joint flirtations. They seemed to delight in provoking her into retaliating in kind, or making her blush. The brothers awakened a certain shameless curiosity within her, a desire for the intimacy and warmth she had once only been able to observe. She discovered that Aion could be surprisingly romantic when the mood struck him, and the first time she kissed Chrono, he blushed (when less than an hour before she'd come across both brothers behaving in an absolutely wanton manner.)

The other Sinners alternately treated her as they had before, or as if she were something simultaneously fragile, yet dangerous. They might be killers, and they might have seen friends die in combat, but they had never seen someone they cared about die of smallpox or the plague. They had never lost a sibling or a child to polio or diphtheria. They had never seen a healthy child become blinded, deafened, or crippled by the mysterious ailments of childhood.

Their only reference point was Pandaemonium's last, devastating attack, and its aftermath. She knew that seeing her slowly weaken was frightening for them, because to them, the concept of disease, of illness was both mysterious and profoundly unnatural. Demons seldom fell sick, and when they did, they usually recovered quickly. She took care to speak to each of them in turn, reassuring them, and answering their questions, and letting them know how she felt about each of them.

She knew her efforts had been successful when Genai had given her two coins as a joke. "Seeing as how you don't have a dime to your name, I thought I'd loan you these, to pay the ferryman," he had said with a sly smile. (Shader hadn't thought the joke very funny however, and arranged for Genai's shower to spray ice water on him.)

Pandaemonium had no seasons, it was always the height of summer, a blazing tropical warmth that varied only slightly depending on the climate controls. As a result, seasons were still something of a novelty for Chrono. So when winter came, Mary introduced him and the other Sinners to snowball fights, ice skating, and sugar-on-snow candy.

"I was never really able to do this when I was a child," Mary said, breathless with laughter after Genai fell through the ice covering one of the water collectors ringing Eden. He wasn't hurt, but he was being uncharacteristically sheepish as Rizelle scolded him for not being more careful. "I always wanted to, seeing the novices and postulants of the Order playing in the courtyard," she smiled. "I usually ended up playing by myself, indoors most of the time." She leaned against him, and he held her close.

Toward the end of winter, Mary began to tire more easily, and began to appear visibily fragile. She grew more and more thin, and her battles with Pandaemonium more desperate. It was frightening to watch her struggle, even more frightening to know that she was losing. She continued to write, and spent more and more of her time awake talking to Aion, though about what, neither she nor Aion would say. She spent her evenings with the both of them, and almost, it was enough. Spring came, and with it a return to health for Mary. She seemed stronger and more active, as if her illness during the winter was only some human sickness, so the final attack when it came, was swift and devastating.

It happened between one breath and the next. One moment Mary had been laughing at something Aion had said, the next she was terrified, pushing away from the table. She knocked over the bench in her haste to get away, and fell down in a tangle of skirts. She rose up to her knees, and screamed, head tilted back, arms spread wide. The barrier sprang up around her, and at the same moment, her wings manifested.

_"Pandaemonium's Voice!" _Was all Aion got out before he dropped to the ground, before everyone dropped, screaming as Mary's power fought Pandaemonium's for the last time. The pain drilled through them with the screaming accusations of the dead and the promise of eternal punishment. Of eternal abandonment.

_ **Traitors.** _ **You have nowhere to go. ** _ **Betrayers.** _ **You are homeless and lost. ** _ **Sinners.** _ **You should never have been created.** _ **Murderers. ** _ **You are nothing, and will become less than nothing. ** _ **Faithless.** _ **You have no rank, no place to stand, nowhere to rest. ** _ **Apostates. ** _

Chrono heard himself cry out Mary's name, screaming it over and over as if it were a charm against the voice droning punishment in his ears and mind. The voice hurt. The voice was killing him, killing everyone.

Instinctively, he reached for his power, reaching further and more deeply than he ever had before. _This might kill all of us, _he thought. _But I have to try. _He lifted his head, eyes squinting against the roiling fires before him. He began to crawl forward, inch by agonizing inch, until he sensed he was near the edge of the barrier. He took a breath, and let it out, took in another breath, and on the second exhalation, set his power loose--

\--And stopped Mary.Silence. Merciful, terrible silence. The last thing he saw before the darkness rose up to claim him, was a strange, impossible image. Mary, shining like glass in sunlight, her wings burning, at the center of a frozen maelstrom of conjoined bodies. _I stopped Her too?_ Dazed, awed, horrified, he slid into darkness.


	8. Epilog

He couldn't see, everything was a white blur. He was aware that someone was speaking to him, but it seemed to take forever to understand that someone. As if he were trying to translate from one language to another, and he didn't know one of the languages.

"Chrono, your horns are damaged. You stopped Mary. We're putting you somewhere safe."

He knew that the voice had told him this several times before, but he couldn't remember those times, or identify the was being carried, he could detect motion, but he couldn't feel anything. The word paralyzed floated to the surface and disappeared. He was vaguely frightened at the thought of being alone, but he couldn't form the words to protest telepathically. He felt the motion stop.

"We have a receptor set up, and we're putting up some wards. Is he going to be all right like this?" The voice asked someone else.

"He'll sleep," Another voice said. "This is something that Mary saw."

He almost recognized the voices, but by the time he thought of their names, he had already drifted away.

* * *

The alarm was a soft chime, but it might as well have been the blast of a foghorn for the reaction it recieved. "He's awake! He's awake! Aion! Guys! Get down here!" Shader's whoop resounded from the basement.

Aion stumbled out of bed in his excitement. _He's awake! He's finally woken up! _He almost collided with Genai, and slammed straight into Viede. He managed something resembling composure by the time he reached Shader's laboratory in the basement (he was fairly certain neither of them were fooled. Then again, they had no cause to mock him, they were just as excited).

"They walked right through the wards like they weren't even there!" Shader crowed, stabbing a finger at the screens. "Look!"

Aion looked, sliding into the chair beside Shader, the other Sinners crowding in behind him, though it wasn't necessary. One the viewing screens two humans, a boy and a girl, were just inside the crypt entrance. Chrono had risen from his bier to confront the two children. Even though he'd watched (guarded) Chrono's sleep off and on for the past fifty years, seeing how _young _he looked was always a shock.

"Who dares awaken me?" Chrono's voice was low and threatening. Aion tried not to smile. It was the precise voice Chrono used when he got to the sinister part of a night-story.

"F-first tell us who and what you are?" The girl said. Neither of the two children looked particularly afraid of Chrono's pronouncement, exchanging half-excited, half-confused looks.

"Cheeky little thing, ain't she?" Genai muttered.

"She's _adorable!"_Shader squeaked. Aion hushed both of them.

"My name is Chrono," Chrono said, still in his sinister voice. "I am what your kind call a devil."

"A devil?" The girl asked. "What do you mean by that?"

"Exactly what I said, a being you humans fear--" Chrono took a threatening step forward, then stumbled and fell to his knees.

"Are you all right?" The girl asked kneeling down to support Chrono.

"I...feel weak," Chrono said softly.

"Oh! Are you hungry?" The girl offered him a handful of candy, and the promptly got into a fight with the little boy who seemed to be her brother. Chrono watched the dispute with a bemused look on his face.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Dialog partially lifted from manga and/or anime.


End file.
